Nexport Chief Commercial Officer Dan Porter sat down with ABC to discuss what the zero-emissions brand has learnt about deploying electric buses in Australia.
As a zero-emissions commercial vehicle brand, Nexport is well and truly at the forefront of Australia’s journey to better, cleaner and cheaper transport. ABC chatted with Nexport’s Dan Porter about how Nexport is approaching an exciting year ahead.
ABC: It’s been a rapid rise for Nexport in Australia! How has the journey been for you and the team so far? How has Nexport grown since first starting in Australia?
DP: It’s been an intense ride over the past 12 months for me personally and the rest of the team – many of whom have been with the company for more than three years.
Nexport’s experience started with the acquisition of a bus body building business that had deployed more than 500 buses in Australia. In 2019, we made the decision to build under the Nexport brand and focus only on zero-emissions vehicles.
Our first electric buses went to Sydney Airport in 2016 and are still in operation. Since then, we have deployed more than 80 electric buses that have driven nearly six million kilometres.
We also developed the capability to help customers transition to zero-emissions through operational analysis, bus and charger deployment maintenance, depot upgrade and aftercare – a true one-stop shop offering.
ABC: Tell me about some of the key lessons you’ve learnt in the past few years and how it’s shaped Nexport today.
DP: There are big lessons that fundamentally affect our organisational direction and inform all decision making.
It all starts with listening to the customer. It sounds stupid but in truth it’s not currently happening. There is a lot of noise, with many people and organisations offering an opinion on how things should be done or selling their solution as the single fix.
The truth is that for transport operators and users, it’s a confusing landscape in which they are trying to determine their core business capability and areas where they need to bring in external expertise.
We need to listen carefully, to operators, to their customers, to governments and to all their stakeholders.
ABC: And what are you hearing from these industry members?
DP: Practice what you preach! I think we’ve been guilty of promising a lot to the market in the past and we’ve learnt it the hard way. We now talk about under promising and over delivering!
We’ve also learnt to be a true partner on the transition journey. One operator told me recently that he can’t get rid of suppliers until he buys something and then he doesn’t see them for a decade! We know that partnerships are about win-win outcomes – we believe in sharing the good and the bad, the KPIs and the penalties.
Then there’s also the need to build local expertise. This is a major challenge facing the industry. The industry has traditionally valued familiar faces and relationships but needs to incorporate new skills, expertise and knowledge. We focus on bringing in people with real operational experience.
Many operators are in their second and third generation of ownership or are owned by enormous corporates. They all have their own special blend of expertise and things they consider core business to ensure that they will be competitive.
Our proposition, therefore, cannot be a one size fits all model. It must be flexible and aligned to the customer’s operational and commercial objectives.
Lastly, we know that partners must be independent. ‘How can you be independent if you sell your own bus?’ is a question we hear all the time, so we are going to diversify our brand and let Nexport focus on being an electric bus and van company.
Nexport will use its global experience to design, engineer and build electric vehicles tailored to the Australian market.
We will take a flexible approach to manufacturing. At times we will build a whole vehicle locally and other times we may look to only undertake final assembly here.
We may also consider building overseas and importing some or all of the product.
ABC: When it comes to this, under what criteria will you build local?
DP: There are lots of pieces to the puzzle, but broadly if the market demands local content or if it’s cheaper, we build in Australia. Global shipping prices and supply chain volatility has created a big case for buying as much as possible in Australia.
We have spent a lot of time in the past year localising and diversifying our supply chain but there are some things you can’t buy here yet.
We want to build locally as much as possible and are planning to open a factory in Sydney later this year. We are also exploring options for Queensland and Victoria. Our methodology includes ground up builds with the full chassis being manufactured here.
In addition to being a manufacturing facility, we plan to offer any available space as interim depots to operators that are transitioning their fleets.
ABC: This factory idea is exciting news! When do you think it’ll open?
DP: I’m confident that it will happen this year. The plans are done, I know the market wants it, so it’s solely about timing. We can see commitment building among the state governments and as momentum builds we will invest.
ABC: Coming back to Nexport being a bus company, what will you now focus on in Australia?
DP: Nexport is going to focus on being a passenger vehicle company that builds the best buses and vans in Australia.
Technology and weight reduction are critical to this and will allow us to either carry more passengers for the same battery capacity or increase range by adding batteries proportional to weight loss achieved. These are decisions that can be made upon understanding the customer’s operational environment.
Range anxiety remains a concern in Australia, especially in regional areas, but it shouldn’t be! Our next generation buses can go up to 500km while offering industry leading passenger capacities.
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| Nexport’s Dan Porter |
ABC: That would be an amazing feat. How will you achieve that?
DP: First the batteries will move off the roof and into the chassis. This means that the body can be built with lightweight materials as it does not need as much structural strength. Further, through the use of innovative designs, we can add more battery capacity without much additional mass.
We also see the opportunity to use anti-reflective paints and other emerging technologies to reduce the energy consumption of the buses, further enhancing the range achieved through weight reduction.
ABC: The major concern for zero-emissions buses centres around safety. How does Nexport emphasise safety among its growing fleet?
DP: Safety is definitely a major concern and it means different things to different people. For example, bus drivers would look at the safety of the cockpit.
We know from European experiences that small investments in things like cockpit ergonomics can benefit operators through increased productivity and reduced injury – we’re absolutely committed to working with drivers to create safe working spaces.
Another is to take a systems-based approach. We’re introducing safety systems that are considered standard in a car, such as lane departure and proximity warnings, driver fatigue and seat belt alerts as well as 360-degree views around the bus.
Then there is the physical safety of the bus itself. We remain vigilant of battery technologies and the risks posed and ensure appropriate measures are considered during our design, engineering and manufacturing process.
ABC: It sounds like Nexport’s on the right track as a bus company. Do you just simply cease the other parts of your company to focus on this?
DP: Not at all. We understand the industry’s feedback that we need to focus our efforts, so we will roll different business capabilities into different brands. Nexport, as mentioned earlier, will be an electric bus and van brand.
Under the Gemilang Australia brand, we will build bodies for OEMs that require local content.
We are also going to launch a new brand called GoZero. There’ll be more on that soon, but it’s essentially about partnering with operators to transition businesses towards zero-emissions through a full ecosystem that focuses on zero-emissions as a platform proposition.
ABC: With all of these changes made, what does the Nexport range look like now?
DP: It starts with our successful 12.5m city bus. This will remain our flagship product but will evolve to DC technology and will come in multiple variants.
We also see that the future of transport is in smaller buses and therefore have introduced buses at 7.5m, 8.5m and 10.5m sizes. We’ll also add a 57-seat coach to the range in the coming months.
These are all supported by our aftersales model, which works as a standalone offering or blended with our services into a turnkey solution. There are infinite possibilities and we’re excited by what the future holds.
ABC: This sounds terrific Dan. Thank you for chatting with me about the future direction of Nexport.